Unrated tornado, Afton, Texas, May 4, 2022

1. EF065 to 85 mph

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. EF186 to 110 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. EF2111 to 135 mph

   Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.

4. EF3136 to 165 mph

   Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

5. EF4166 to 200 mph

   Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

6. EF5over 200 mph

   Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.

7. Unratedthis tornado

   The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.

Rating

Unrated

Date

May 4, 2022

Touchdown

5:52 PM CDT (22:52 UTC)

Lifted

6:02 PM CDT (23:02 UTC)

On the ground

10 minutes

Path length

3.7 miles (6.0 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Dickens County

Touchdown point

33.813, -100.594

Lift-off point

33.826, -100.531

Record number

2205041652-01

1 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LUB, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry.

• NWS Employeee photo of weak tornado W-NW of Dumont

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

The afternoon and evening of the fourth brought active weather, including a cyclic tornadic thunderstorm that affected portions of the Rolling Plains. The severe weather was triggered by a dryline, in combination with a strong storm system approaching from the Great Basin into the central Rockies. Initially, isolated storm development occurred over the southwest and south-central Texas Panhandle Wednesday afternoon. These storms quickly became strong to severe, and dropped hail from quarter to ping pong ball sized. Greater intensity storms formed a bit later in the afternoon, erupting ahead of a dryline surge over the west-central Rolling Plains. Strong instability and wind shear caused the more intense storms to start rotating, with the cyclonically rotating storms moving slowly eastward and the anticyclonically rotating storms racing north-northeastward. The most intense storm of the day formed east of Crosbyton (Crosby County), moved northeastward to near Afton (Dickens County), then more directly eastward near Dumont (King County) and Grow (King County). The tornado then moved across rural parts of northeast King County and southeast Cottle County. As it did so, the storm generated baseball to softball size hail and a few tornadoes. The first tornado report of the day came in from west of Dumont, where a dusty circulation took shape under a rotating wall cloud. This tornado was well documented by storm chasers, but inflicted no known damage as it remained over open country. The next tornado formed roughly a half hour later near Grow. This tornado persisted around 15 minutes, and moved roughly east-southeast remaining close to Farm to Market Roads 1168 and 3416 for about five miles before turning east and crossing County Road 204. The final tornado developed at 1700 CST southeast of Chalk (Cottle County), then tracked over remote portions of northeast King County before crossing into Foard County. This tornado appeared to be wider on chaser videos, but caused no observed damage. Since no damage was observed with any of the three tornadoes documented, all three tornadoes received an EF-Unknown rating.

Multiple chaser reports were received, including a video of a small tornado, in far northeastern Dickens County. An NWS storm survey revealed no known damage.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:57 UTC and running to 02:26 UTC.

Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Enhanced Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:33 UTC.

SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.

The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.

Childress Municipal (CDS), 73 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Lubbock radar (KLBB), 117 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:51 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2022 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are

17 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.